down every post for
miles along the railway. I wondered what the grinning Kaffirs thought of
such a spectacle; here were the white men, the pioneers of
enlightenment, engaged in cutting each other's throats and destroying
the outward signs of their civilisation! Perhaps it is worth mentioning
that native opinion in Cape Colony has, as far as can be judged from the
native journal _Imvo_, been decidedly against us in the present war.
This is a factor which must be reckoned with as regards the question
whether or no blacks shall be armed and permitted to share in the
fighting. Of course it seems at first sight perfectly fair to give the
Zulus or Basutos the means of defending themselves from cattle-raiding
Boers, but if you once arm a savage there is a very real danger of his
getting out of control, and Zulus might make incursions into the Free
State or Basutos into Cape Colony. From such things may we be preserved!
There is an intensely strong feeling amongst colonial Englishmen as well
as Dutchmen--much more intense than anything we feel at home--against
the bringing of natives into a quarrel between white men.

The train soon traverses the distance between Belmont and Graspan. None
can wish to linger on this journey, for the surrounding region is dreary
and forbidding. The everlasting kopje crops up here and there, looking
like--what in fact it is--a mere vast heap of boulders and stones from
which the earth has been dislodged by the constant attrition of wind and
rain. The hillocks in the Graspan district are by no means lofty--none
of them seemed to get beyond a few hundred feet--but beyond Modder River
the big kopje on the right which was seamed with Boer trenches must be,
I should guess, well over six hundred feet from the plain. A large
proportion of the kopjes in this part of the country have absolutely
flat tops--why, I cannot imagine--and the whole appearance of the
country suggests at once the former bed of an ocean. _A propos_ of
geology, I once in camp came across a sergeant who was surrounded by a
little band of privates, deeply interested in his scientific remarks,
which began as follows: "Now, some considerable time before the Flood,
Table Mountain was at the bottom of the sea, for sea shells are found
there at the present day, etc." It is quite a mistake to suppose that
the soldier cares for none of these things. As a "Tommy" myself I had
some unique opportunities of learning what they talked about and ho